


it began with stones

by callunavulgari



Category: Dragon Age II, In the Flesh (TV)
Genre: M/M, Partially Deceased Syndrome, Post-Zombie Apocalypse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-28
Updated: 2016-06-28
Packaged: 2018-07-18 18:16:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,420
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7325476
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/callunavulgari/pseuds/callunavulgari
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Everyone knows that the blight started in Ferelden. Some things get mixed up in the telling of it -- the story passing from person to person until it isn’t the same story at all -- but largely it's agreed upon that things started there.</p><p>See, one woman will say to another. The first rising began on the northern shores of Lake Calenhad, where Circle Tower loomed huge and ominous against the horizon. That it was the mages who started the whole thing. Blood magic, you see. Get mixed up in that sort and you’ll end up raising the dead.</p><p>And then the second woman will say to the first that <i>she’d</i> heard it said that the rising started near Orzammar. That those dead things crawled straight outta the Deep Roads and started biting people left and right, until those people started to turn too.</p><p>Huh, they’ll say, and when they walk away to tell the next person the story will have changed again.</p>
            </blockquote>





	it began with stones

**Author's Note:**

  * For [darthvair65](https://archiveofourown.org/users/darthvair65/gifts).



> Hey Jen! Happy belated birthday! I tried to get this up on the 20th, I really did. But then our AC broke and packing for the move hit an all time high and just. Complications. But hey. I know you like Dragon Age and zombies, so I sat down and thought 'How do I combine these two things in a vaguely original sort of way?' And my brain went, huh. In The Flesh was pretty weird and cool, what if the blights were like the Rising? And then I got zombie previously mage Hawke, a whole lot of meandering words that wanted to spawn many, many more words, and (spoilers), not even a single kiss to show for it. 
> 
> But if I don't post this now I'm never going to, so hopefully you enjoy it despite its... oddness. I'm also really hoping that you actually watched In the Flesh and didn't just like... reblog it just the once. Or something.
> 
> Title from Alpines' song, Empire.

Everyone knows that the blight started in Ferelden.

Some things get mixed up in the telling of it -- the story passing from person to person until it isn’t the same story at all -- but largely it's agreed upon that things started there.

See, one woman will say to another. The first rising began on the northern shores of Lake Calenhad, where Circle Tower loomed huge and ominous against the horizon. That it was the mages who started the whole thing. Blood magic, you see. Get mixed up in that sort and you’ll end up raising the dead.

And then the second woman will say to the first that _she’d_ heard it said that the rising started near Orzammar. That those dead things crawled straight outta the Deep Roads and started biting people left and right, until those people started to turn too.

Huh, they’ll say, and when they walk away to tell the next person the story will have changed again.

Stories get mixed up.

Hawke’s heard it all. That it started in the heart of the Korcari Wilds, where the wood was thickest and none but the bravest swamp creatures ventured. That the dead clawed their way back into life in the Frostback Mountains years and years ago, and nobody noticed ‘cause the dead move so slow in the cold.

Hinterlands, Deep Roads, Dragon’s Peak… they’ll never know for certain where it happened first. Times were rough. People died. Stories grew and warped and tore all together.

Hawke doesn’t know where things started. He’s fine with that.

But he knows where things started for him.

There aren’t many memories from before, not ones that are clear anyways, but one of them is waking up in his coffin. He remembers clawing at the wood, his nails splintering and flaking off, black blood dripping down onto his gaping mouth. He remembers clawing out into the night, where the hill that housed his graveyard was just beginning to shift and roll with newly reanimated bodies.

Remembers looking down at Lothering, sprawled out below him, all gleaming bright lights and warmth warmth warmth.

He wasn’t him then, and he knows that. Wasn’t Garrett Hawke, born to Leandra Amell and Malcolm Hawke. He wasn’t a son or a brother. Wasn’t even really a human. He was just dead.

Dead and hungry.

Which is why he doesn’t feel bad about stumbling down that hill towards that promising warmth, his steps uneven and faltering, clumps of soil tumbling from his hair and wrists. He can’t feel bad about something that he didn’t do.

Can’t feel bad about how sometimes, even the dead return to places that they’d loved in life. And that sometimes, a loved one would be there to greet him.

The thing that wasn’t Garrett Hawke had beaten his little sister’s head against the trunk of the tree that they’d grown up climbing until her skull split and cracked down the middle. And then the thing that wasn’t him had slipped dirty, broken fingers inside her skull, and brought pieces of her brain up to his -- _its_ \-- lips.

But that wasn’t his fault.

He was a partially deceased syndrome sufferer, and what he did in his untreated state was not his fault.

These are the lies that they teach you, when you truly wake up to your second life.

Your body is cold and foreign. Before you’re even fully aware again, you’re shivering. Unconscious reaction. You can’t feel, not really, but you don’t know that yet. Your brain thinks that your nerves are working, so it feels like they are. It’s so cold. Why can’t you get warm?

You take your first breath because it's instinct -- air whooshes in through your lips, your diaphragm expands and contracts, pushing air into your lungs -- and you realize that it isn’t necessary. Breathing, that is.

And then you notice that your heart isn’t beating.

If you’re very lucky, you will realize that you are dead. You will have a brief moment where you think you’re in the afterlife. And then a healer with curling blonde hair and a hugely fake smile stretched across her face will tell you the truth.

The room you’re in is thick with shadows, the hearth burned down to embers. From the inside it could be a mansion, a hovel, or a tent. You have no way of knowing. The only things in the room are the bed, a chair, and the fire place.

And the healer, of course.

It isn’t the same for everyone. Some people take weeks to get their first flashback.

Hawke gets his five minutes after he wakes up.

The healer’s lips part. She wets her lips, still smiling, and says, almost cheerfully, “You’re dead.”

Her teeth are bright and so very white.

And then Hawke remembers, his sister’s mouth open in a grin as she opened the door for him. How he caught her in his arms, darting and quick, and seized her head in his arms. Slamming. Once. Twice. Crunch.

Hawke makes it five minutes before he opens his mouth and screams.

It might be a record.

.

Darktown is full of Hawke’s sort.

Kirkwall, cheerfully nicknamed the City of Chains, has more than earned its name. When his mother had told them stories of her home in the past, Hawke and his siblings had imagined a sprawling estate with roses and daffodils tucked around the corners of the property. A place where the stone wasn’t crumbling and the ceiling didn’t gape above them. Where the bannisters gleamed, freshly polished, and the hearth never lost its warmth.

Which was true enough, as long as you were fortunate enough to live in Hightown.

Lowtown was bad.

Darktown was worse.

The paint that they’d given Hawke when he’d left the hospital is a thick orange goop that gets stuck in his beard and only lends people the illusion that he is one of the living if it is very, very dark. It isn’t like the amulets given to the ones with money. Those sort of amulets are hard to come by, enchanted to make you resemble a human right up until someone touched you. Then they realized -- your body was cold.

The paste is not unlike the stuff that high born ladies and low born whores alike smeared across their cheeks.

Hawke wears it anyway. He dutifully spreads the gunk over his cheekbones, neck, and arms. Anywhere that some normal person could see. He puts his lenses in each morning, the shade of brown just ever so slightly off. And he goes to work. Wherever work is that day.

More often than not, it’s Darktown. People there don’t tend to care that his skin isn’t the right shade or that his contact is slipping. They’re just glad that he’s wearing it at all.

He takes odd jobs. Makes contacts. Gets into fights.

It’s about what he expected his life would be like when they told him that his one surviving family member was a templar living in a city that he’d never been to.

And then Hawke meets Varric.

Varric, who has a real job lined up. An expedition into the Deep Roads, where they’ll find great treasures of old. And all it’ll take is a little rough work. The sort that only the dead can do. And, of course, some gold.

“There are whispers of a healer, in the heart of Darktown,” Varric tells him one night, thumb running along the rim of his mug of ale. “He runs a clinic down there. Doesn’t charge a single copper for most.”

“And why do I care?” Hawke asks, deadpan. His eyes are on the pretty flirt a few tables over, her ample cleavage happily on display.

Varric smiles and throws back his drink. When he lowers his mug and thumbs the foam from his upper lip, his voice is low and coaxing.

“Because,” he says. “Rumor is that he’s your sort.”

Reluctantly, Hawke tears his eyes away from the girl.

“And?”

Varric grin stretches from ear to ear, flashing bright white teeth. “And he’s still got his magic.”

Hawke stops. Blinks. Sets down the beer that he’ll never drink and stops thinking about the sex that he’ll never have.

He turns to Varric, a furrow between his eyes, and says, “Tell me more.”

.

The first time Hawke meets Fenris, he’s covered from head to toe in blood. He’s left bloody footprints on the cracked stone behind him, and is likely to spill some more if the way the men are eying him and his companions are any indication.

Anders shifts next to him, bringing his staff forward ever so slightly.

And then… Fenris. Glowing, dangerous Fenris.

Who hates his kind.

“Darkspawn,” he sneers at Anders, lip curling.

Hawke licks his lips. Doesn’t think about how in the dark of the alienage, it’ll be hard to tell that paint is gunked all over Hawke’s face, with blood to mask whatever’s left. Doesn’t think about how Anders leaves his own face bare to the world, splintered pupils at the very center of dead, grey eyes. No one would mistake Anders for anything other than what he is, even in the dark.

Hawke though, is passable enough. For now.

When Fenris asks for aid, Hawke ignores Varric and Anders’ looks, and follows him.

“He’ll find out, you know,” Varric whispers out of the corner of his mouth.

Hawke shrugs. “He will.”

“And what will you do then?” Varric asks, one eyebrow quirked skyward. “I seen that puppy love look on a whole lot of people, Hawke, and I might never seen it on you, but you bet your cold, pasty ass that I can recognize it for what it is.”

Hawke considers Fenris’ backside for a moment, then shrugs again.

“It’ll be a challenge.” He grins. “I like challenges.”

.

The Guard Captain is a tall, imposing sort of woman. Her startlingly orange hair is pulled back in a no-nonsense sort of style, and her posture is impeccable. She is, in short, absolutely terrifying.

“You know,” she says, staring Hawke down with piercing blue eyes. “I knew your family.”

Hawke sucks in a breath, his heart reduced to a pulpy mess in the span of a second. He doesn’t think. Demands, “How?”

There must be something in his expression -- some hunger or thirst that the captain knows herself -- because her eyes soften. Her shoulders relax a fraction, and she removes her hand from the hilt of the sword hanging at her waist.

“We found each other when we were fleeing Ferelden. When my husband fell to the… well. When my husband was tainted by the blight, we came here together. Your mother was a lovely woman.”

Hawke swallows, his adam’s apple bobbing. He finds himself wishing, somewhat desperately, for some time alone with this woman. Away from the prying eyes of his companions, away from the dark of the street, and the blood on the brickwork at their feet.

He’d met with Carver once, after doggedly following him across the Waking Sea. Carver had taken one look at him, and spat at his feet. Hawke supposes that he was lucky he hadn’t been run through on the spot.

“How-” he starts to ask, a ball forming in his throat and cutting him off from the rest of his words.

He can’t cry. His tear ducts are dried up and barren, but for a moment, he wishes that he could.

He swallows and tries again, mindful of Varric’s eyes on his back. Anders’. Fenris’. “How did my mother die?”

The captain startles, her eyes going wide. “You don’t-” she starts, and winces. “My apologies. I’d thought that someone would have told you.”

Someone is Carter. They both know it. Neither of them speak his name.

“I’m sorry,” she says again, and the pity in her eyes is almost unbearable. He’d prefered the suspicion she’d regarded him with before, when all she saw was an uneven, inhuman complexion and knew him for what he was. “It was an apostate. He wanted to bring his lover back to life and sought to do so with blood magic. I wish I could say that she felt no pain, but the truth is, we don’t know.”

Hawke bites down on his lip so hard that he tastes brackish blood.

“But why her?” he asks, his voice wounded. Like a little boys.

Someone makes a noise behind him, but he doesn’t dare look.

The captain swallows, her eyes shuttering closed. “Leandra looked like her. Like his lover.”

Hawke nods, and wishes that knowing had made him feel better. Now, he won’t be able to stop himself from wondering if he could have saved her, if he were there. Would she have been saved, if she’d had her apostate son with her? If he hadn’t lost his magic when he’d lost his life, leaving him little more than a second rate cutsword?

“Thank you,” he tells her sincerely, gaze fixed on her boots. “For telling me. Captain.”

“Please,” she says to him, a small, sad smile flickering across her lips. “Call me Aveline.”

.

Sometimes, Hawke wakes up screaming. It isn’t so bad when he’s at home when it happens. Lowtown is used to screams. And the uncle that he barely knows is rarely home to hear them.

It’s worse when they have to camp somewhere.

Hawke doesn’t have to eat, or drink, or breathe, but for some reason, he needs sleep. It’s unbearable, waking up with a scream in his throat to the knowing eyes of his companions, the memory of his sister’s flesh between his teeth, her blood on his hands.

Worse is when they pretend not to hear. Their backs turned to the fire, as if anyone could have slept through the noise.

It only happens in the Deep Roads once.

The sound is horribly loud in the quiet of the tunnels, and even before Hawke is fully awake he’s flinching from the sound of it, praying that there aren’t any of the true darkspawn down here to hear -- and then a hand is slapping itself over his mouth.

“Quiet,” Fenris’ voice comes, clipped and urgent in his ear.

Hawke shudders under the touch and slants his eyes open, glancing first to his left, where Varric is laid out, stiff as a board, and then to the right, where Anders is watching something that Hawke can’t see. Then, belatedly, his eyes go up to Fenris.

He realizes, too late, that his lenses aren’t in. Anders hasn't worked a spell on his eyes. He isn't wearing an amulet.

His eyes are bare.

After weeks of travelling together, Fenris would have to be blind to not realize what Hawke is. Weeks of watching Hawke not eat with the rest of them, weeks of seeing him take blows that no human would be so quick to jump back up from. Weeks of thick orange paint smeared too hastily over his wrists and eyelids.

Knowing and seeing are different things entirely.

Fenris’ eyes widen, his breath comes a bit faster, but to his credit, he doesn’t move away. He hovers half above Hawke, his leg pressed right alongside Hawke’s own, his hand curving over Hawke’s mouth -- surely feeling his lack of breath. His cold lips.

And he doesn’t move. He doesn’t murder Hawke. His tattoos don’t light up the darkness of the cavern.

They stay like that, in that space of in between, for what feels like eons. Hawke wonders if, with Fenris pressed against him, his body is warming. How long would Fenris have to stay against him in order for Hawke to be passably human?

And then finally, Varric lets out an unsteady sigh. There are murmurs around camp, from the people that Bartrand brought with them. “Hawke?” Varric whispers, his voice more uneasy than Hawke has ever heard it.

Hawke mumbles something that could be construed as a yes against Fenris’ palm. Fenris jerks his hand back as if stung.

“For the sake of my sanity, never do that again.”

Hawke swallows, eyes still locked on the ones above him. Other than his hand, Fenris hasn’t moved. “Noted.”

.

“You know,” Isabela tells him teasingly one day. “I’ll bet we could make something work.”

They’re all clustered around a table in the darkened corners of the Hanged Man, heads bent low as they converse and drink and eat. Fenris is sitting to Hawke’s right, discussing something that sounds immaterial with Varric, but when Isabela speaks, he goes noticeably silent.

“Make what work?” Hawke asks, though he can guess.

Hawke likes Isabela. She’s honest, for a pirate. She knows what she wants and wastes no time dithering around before deciding to take it. Hawke can respect that.

“You and me,” she purrs, inching closer to him until her breasts are pressed to his shoulder. She loops her arms around his neck. “You can’t tell me that you haven’t wanted to try.”

Isabela isn’t stupid. She may act it at times, but she’s clever. He still has to ask. “You understand what it means that my heart doesn’t beat, don’t you?”

She scoffs, and leans in closer, until her lips are at his ear. “There are other ways of making it work, Hawke.”

Intrigued, he narrows his eyes at her.

At his back, Fenris is completely still now. Listening.

“How?”

She smiles at him, painted lips curled smugly, and in a deft, complicated looking maneuver, smoothly slides into his lap. Her eyes are almost green, this close. Her skin brown and flawless. She is so very warm, so alive, an inferno pressed to his chest. She breathes hotly against his mouth, and when she leans in to kiss him, he lets her.

Beside them, Fenris hastily makes his excuses and takes his leave of them.

When Isabela pulls away from him, the paint on her mouth is smeared. But there’s a glint in her eye that’s usually only there after she’s messily slaughtered someone who has wronged her. Pride.

“You’re welcome,” she says, nodding in the direction that Fenris had left in.

.

Hawke buys the old Amell estate with his portion of the treasure. He spends well over a fortnight making it habitable, and it isn’t until he surfaces into the sunshine outside that he realizes he hasn’t left the place once.

He goes to the alienage to visit Merrill, who is unreasonably happy to see him.

Then he goes to the Hanged Man and buys Isabela and Varric a drink.

And then, when the sun is starting to droop below the horizon, he makes his way to the ruin that is Danarius’ mansion.

It is inevitable, that he should end up here.

Fenris is seated in the kitchens, a glass of wine dangling from lax fingers. He lazily glances up when Hawke enters the room, his eyes drooping from the drink, exhaustion, or both. He raises an eyebrow and gestures to the seat next to him. Drawls, “Please, have a seat. I’d offer you a drink, but I’m told that your kind don’t drink.”

“We don’t,” Hawke agrees, kicking shards of broken wood out from underfoot before settling down next to Fenris. He isn’t wearing the ring that Isabela had given him two weeks ago, had purposefully left it off before he’d set out for the day.

Maybe he’s being a glutton for punishment, but the name Hawke is starting to mean as much to this city as Amell once did. They might as well see him for who he really is.

“So, what brings you to me today?” Fenris asks. “Another job, perhaps?”

Hawke shifts in his chair, regarding Fenris carefully. He is pale, sweaty, and reeks of wine. There’s a curl of pale hair stuck to the corner of his mouth and a flush high across his cheekbones. Despite the disarray, the untethered way that he isn’t put together at all, he is beautiful.  
  
Hawke wants him.

And, he thinks, watching Fenris' eyes dip and linger, he's beginning to think that he may not be alone in that.

“Do I need a reason?” he asks, his voice gone soft.

Fenris’ brows furrow inward and he pauses, drink half raised to his mouth. “No,” he says, after a long moment. “I suppose you don’t.”

.

“What do you do when you stop running?” Fenris asks, days or weeks or months later.

Hawke swallows and clenches his hand into a fist to hide the tremors.

He licks his dry lips. Says, with a smile, and a half a hope, “You build a life.”

 

 

 


End file.
